FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure

[Caleb Sykes]

@Allison
Am I interpreting this spreadsheet correctly to mean that no Michigan rookies made it to the State Tournament this year? And only 1 rookie last year? Because if so, this is most likely what FIRST HQ is trying to remedy.

[Robotmmm]

Instead of rewarding rookies for existing and hoping that will inspire them why don't we try this:

Encourage rookie teams to attend District Champs as spectators.

Hold events for them:

-Give some short seminars on several topics. Maybe a few mentors can cover this.

-Let veteran teams volunteer to adopt a few students from a rookie team for the duration of the competition so they can be in their pits and learn.

-Let them bring their robots and have them set up in a special "Rookie Section". Teams can then send students to the rookie's pits to go over their robots with them and suggest improvements.

These are just off the top of my head, but I think there are so many more ways we can inspire rookies that are much more beneficial then throwing them some points just because they exist.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by inkling16

@Allison
Am I interpreting this spreadsheet correctly to mean that no Michigan rookies made it to the State Tournament this year? And only 1 rookie last year? Because if so, this is most likely what FIRST HQ is trying to remedy.

This is correct. There were zero rookies at MSC last year.

[Francis-134]

We will have to see how the rookie points pan out.

In my opinion, the rookie points are...different? FIRST has an obvious problem, which is the fact that the team attrition rate is extremely high. Objectively speaking, seeing a couple hundred teams die every year is bad (is it as bad as other programs? I have no idea, but objectively, losing ~150 teams a year or MORE is not a good thing).

So far, FIRST has tried to provide money, offer resources for mentors, and offer resources for teams, and it has not worked as well as it needs to. I welcome the change, and think that it's good to seem them try something at all. There may be better solutions, the number of points may be too many, but at this point, I'm willing to let them try SOMETHING to make the rookie/second year teams gain some traction.

I am also very happy to see the top award in FIRST reward a team with a trip to the DCMP. It really is a no brainer. If a team is truly the best that FIRST has to offer, why can't they play at their regions highest stage?

I am a little disappointed at the number of points for judged awards. I might have valued them a little higher, but overall, I am happy with the point system.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by magnets

It builds on my opinion that the culture of FIRST has changed drastically over the past 5-10 years. It's less about robots/engineering/competitions, and more about education, spreading the word, and getting more teams involved. While this may get FIRST out to the public, it's making sacrifices to competitive teams.

I haven't seen this part addressed yet.

FIRST is NOT about robots, engineering, or competitions. Never has been, never will be. FIRST has always been about Inspiration... and about Recognition of Science and Technology. (Sound familiar? It should...)

The competition is just a vehicle. Robotics is just the type of vehicle. FIRST could have chosen R/C aircraft, popsicle stick towers, or any other sort of competition as their competition choice. And the reason for choosing a competition is to lure in the general public and get them interested--it's a lot easier to get folks to a sporting event than a science fair, no?

The culture of FIRST has not gone away from competition. In fact, to some folks, it has gone a little too far TOWARDS competition and away from the inspiration and outreach.


Which, I think, is why the point system is the way it is. Not to lure rookies to DCMPs to get their tails stomped, but to lure them there to be inspired by the robots that are doing the stomping, possibly including their own. Not to elevate winning (some would say that winning the event is valued too high--if you win out of the last pick, you get 2* record + 1 for picking position + 30 points for match wins in series, compared to 10 points and an autobid for DCA) but to give recognition to both the teams that win the event and the teams that started a journey to win the most prestigious award FRC has.

The committee had probably the #1 hardest job in FRC, because they had to balance the competition aspect with the outreach aspect, and still keep as many people as possible happy. IMO, there are a couple of items that may need tweaking (exact point values for DCA, rookie bonuses, and/or awards come to mind), but I think overall they did a pretty decent job.

[PayneTrain]

I just feel like floating this idea out there.

What if instead of giving rookies bonus points for their existence, you have them compete for a DCMP bid in a separate pool for a certain number of guaranteed rookie spots? You leave 5 slots for rookies and another 5 for second years that have to go to them, then leave the other 40+ remaining slots up for grabs by any team (because chairman's). That solves the problem of risking no rookies at CMP, and takes away the bonus of existence.

Originally Posted by EricH

The committee had probably the #1 hardest job in FRC, because they had to balance the competition aspect with the outreach aspect, and still keep as many people as possible happy. IMO, there are a couple of items that may need tweaking (exact point values for DCA, rookie bonuses, and/or awards come to mind), but I think overall they did a pretty decent job.

I certainly don't envy the job. Those who have put any significant time in this program know the names of most people who factored into this decision, if not all. Why is that? They are some of the best, most experienced leaders this program has to offer. Woodie Flowers Award Winners, major faces and minds in their own district systems (including one whose name could be likened to an FRC messiah, delivering unto us the original district system and saving us from the regional structure), regional directors, and of course the head honcho of FRC. This is a handful of flagship leadership to steer the direction of FIRST's flagship program. I appreciate any difficult decisions they make, including the prediction they likely all made that we would pick at it the second it went online. Thanks for all the hard work guys.

[Allison K]

Originally Posted by inkling16

@Allison
Am I interpreting this spreadsheet correctly to mean that no Michigan rookies made it to the State Tournament this year? And only 1 rookie last year? Because if so, this is most likely what FIRST HQ is trying to remedy.

That would be my guess as well, and I understand the rational. If I sounded incensed or angry I didn't intend to. I'm just surprised, given the fairly large proportion of veteran teams who also haven't had the opportunity to attend. The rookie/second year points also surprised me as the impact on the overall makeup of district champs is dependent on a factor that varies from year to year (the proportion of rookies and second year teams vs. 3rd year or older). As of now Michigan has 242 teams, of which 49 are rookies and 23 are second year teams, so it's a change that's giving almost 1/3 of the teams a boost.

[Jscout11]

Originally Posted by EricDrost

This is extremely disappointing. Until FIRST allows cross-district registration, this villainizes successful district teams that want to travel. The teams at the regional they attend will be upset with them for eating up a spot, and the teams in their district will be upset with them for eating up a spot. This just seems like a lose-lose way of limiting the number of teams per district that qualify for champs.

I completely agree with this, from the perspective of a team who won both a regional and district event last year. Teams were already not too pleased that we took away possible points from other non-qualified teams by winning in districts when we were already qualified for St Louis (or taking a district chairman's slot for that matter). Hypothetically, with the new system, we would have not only taken away points from other teams, we would have also taken away a spot from the district as a whole (while subsequently taking away a spot from wherever we competed). I agree that the proportions from each region have to have some balance, but my issue is with the fact that teams in the district really have no control over the teams that may possibly win awards at other events, but are punished for it anyway. If a team at a regional happens to lose to a district team, they should "suffer the consequences" so to speak, and not the teams who were not even there.

It's already become much harder for districts teams to travel, and while I can respect the work that went into this system and support a lot of it, I feel like this is only making that specific issue worse.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by inkling16

@Allison
Am I interpreting this spreadsheet correctly to mean that no Michigan rookies made it to the State Tournament this year? And only 1 rookie last year? Because if so, this is most likely what FIRST HQ is trying to remedy.

It will be interesting to see how the rookie "bonus" points work out in the Pacific Northwest this year. The district has grown massively since 2008 and rookie teams regularly hold down key positions as Captains and highly picked alliance members at regional events. This may be different from the more established districts back east, where there are dozens of highly competitive, established teams.

In VRC we have found that having a "B" division at the provincial championships has been very helpful for developing teams*. It makes total sense that a district would want to hold one or two "non-championship" events, where the teams who did not advance to the state championship would have the opportunity to win matches and experience being an alliance captain or high seed.

Jason

* Teams that competed in the BC Championships "A" division last year actually had a higher win percentage at VRC Worlds than they did at the BCIT. Developing teams were quite happy to play in "B" Division and not face world champions and runners-up.

[KrazyCarl92]

I think this point structure is pretty darn awesome. This team of respected mentors and volunteers had a very difficult job and clearly had to make some compromises individually to reach consensus as a group. Sure it's not what I would've come up with, but I trust that they did the proper analysis with all of the implications of this point structure. I don't expect it to be perfect in its first year, that would be an unreasonable expectation.

It seems like there is some misunderstanding of the rookie point bonus. Some people have been assuming that the rookie point bonus will apply to each event somehow or be multiplied by the DCMP 3x multiplier. Based on my interpretation it is as follows:

Take all of the other points, ignoring the rookie bonus, throughout the entire season...then add 10. If a rookie team would have earned 90 points without the rookie bonus, they earn 100 points. It's not like those points would be tacked on for 2 districts and then 3x for the DCMP to give 140 points, that is nowhere in the document.

[Grim Tuesday]

Since the rookie point boost seems to be such a sticking point, why not make the point boost like this:

Haven't attended DCMP in 4 years/Rookie: 10 pts
Haven't attended DCMP in 3 years/2nd year: 5 pts


While I agree in principle with the notion that the points should provide a District Championship with the best robots, there are many teams in desperate need of a culture shock. Maybe with the 'culture shock' coming in form of more teams coming to District Championships, we can eliminate the CMP Waitlist and then have enough slots at CMP to get rid of the other very objectionable part about district slots being eaten.

People have long predicted the inevitable change to a FIRST-wide District system. I think this is the last year we will see regionals as we know them and right now we are experiencing exactly the growing pains everyone predicted: Teams without districts are experiencing difficulties and the standardization of the district systems is beginning to occur. I can't wait to see it get perfected!

[Tristan Lall]

This looks reasonable to me.


I'd agree the team age point bonus could stand to be clarified. The statement "Points earned at District Championships will be multiplied by three and then added to points earned at District events, to determine the final season points total for the Team." implies either that points earned independently of the events (i.e. team age points) don't count, or that team age points are earned at events (and thus count repeatedly). The first would be silly, and the second perhaps a bit excessive. Fortunately, FIRST has plenty of time to amend the formula to state that it's a one-time bonus, applied at the beginning of the season.

But even if the team age bonus is per-event, it's only a little excessive. The team age bonus is basically a subsidy that benefits the teams that have the highest rate of failure-induced dissolution (and consequently set bad examples for everyone who sees the teams disband and develops a poor impression of the FRC program), and distributes the harm evenly and lightly across the rest of the field. It seems like an equitable compromise to me, given that the alternative (letting the teams fail) could easily be more harmful overall.

Sure, there will be a few teams on the margin who, if there hadn't been a team age bonus, would have qualified, and who will instead sit out. But that's fine, because there needs to be a systematic way of recognizing that there is value in having a few teams participate in the higher-level events, even if they're not really the best on the field. Just as the points for awards are a recognition of FIRST's view that the game and the team's off-field activities are not wholly separable, there's a fair argument to be made that the team age is intrinsically a characteristic that should be considered in selecting who advances. Granted, all of this dilutes the purity of the competition, but it's not as if that dilution hasn't been the status quo for many years (with awards factoring into qualification for the Championship). If that dilution were of greater magnitude, I'd be pretty annoyed too—but I don't think it's that bad on balance.


As for the fact that winning a regional outside your district claws back a Championship slot from the rest of the teams in the district, it's not perfect, but it properly addresses the larger issue of a district team qualifying at a regional (i.e. outside of its district) and thus diminishing the opportunities for the regional teams who don't have the additional opportunity to qualify through the district process. In other words, it avoids hurting the teams outside any district, and—provided that you're as competitive at the regional as you are in your district, which is admittedly far from guaranteed—your slot at the regional is kind of like a replacement for the slot you'd have been likely to win at your district championship. Were that to be the case, the clawback would be reasonable, because you've already qualified and therefore don't need the district championship slot. (And it doesn't harm anyone else either, because they couldn't have won the slot that you were going to otherwise win.)

[Michael Sperber]

I think Carl hit the nail right on the head:

Originally Posted by KrazyCarl92

This team of respected mentors and volunteers had a very difficult job and clearly had to make some compromises individually to reach consensus as a group.

The key here is compromise. I can't speak for the distinguised committee that developed this model, but I am fairly confident that not everyone got everything they were asking for. They negotiated, they compromised and they came up with a model that they were all comfortable with releasing.

The other thing we all need to keep in mind is what Frank said in his announcement (emphasis added):

While this system will be used by all Districts in 2014, it is not set in stone. Our intention is to periodically review the system, making improvements for later years as we see the need. It’s our additional intent that every year, all Districts will use the standard points ranking system that is in place for that year. This will help facilitate the potential introduction of inter-District play, which we intend to develop for the 2015 season.

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by Libby K

And while that's something that comes down to the teams in the community being willing to help out the rookies around them, and not something HQ or any district can decide -- it's a better solution long-term.

I think this is a great point, though there are still going to be those rookie teams who push away help and insist upon "doing it themselves" (and struggle immensely as a result). But a lot of teams could be bolstered by closer and better mentoring by seasoned mentors or teams that really work closely with them, on not only building a robot but building their team (and DONT just let them go after their first year). But lets face it, the rookie teams that sustain these days are mostly the ones that form with experienced mentors, or very very close "sister" teams.

Many people are getting up in arms about the rookie & second year points... I need to see a model before I agree/disagree. I do agree that it is a little strange that NO rookies attended MSC last year, and there is some need of remedy there (IMO, it shouldnt be all rookies, but at least a few should be good enough rookies to make it in - with 11 RAS teams, NONE were good enough to move on to DCMP??)... how did MSC award RAS??

Anyways, one point that I think A LOT of people may not be considering is yeah, the age points bonus may seem big, BUT, how many of those teams are going to be able to come up with the extra $4,000 it takes to register for the District Championship??? or even if they get help from FIRST or the Districts to do that, how many are going to be able to quickly coordinate and pay for travel after week 5 or 6 to get to a week 7 event? I don't think this is going to dilute the pool as much as people may think.

After letting this settle in, I think I'm fairly happy with the result, and I certainly trust many of the names on that list (know most but not all of them), and I am glad to hear that this was run through the MSC & MAR data. I'm certain all of this will make sense against the data.

What I am more interested in are the questions that are not touched on in this document & blog:
1. How many World CMP slots is each District going to get?
2. How do Legacy/HoF teams play into the number of slots? What if a Legacy/HoF wins an outside regional slot?
3. What auto-qualifies a team for World CMP from DCMP? Chairmans is noted in the document, but does that mean 0-EI and 0-RAS auto-qualify (even though at regionals EI & RAS have auto-qualified teams in past years).
4. How many of each award do District Championships get to give out (CA, EI, RAS, WF, DL come to mind).
I posted those in the comments.

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

What I am more interested in are the questions that are not touched on in this document & blog:
1. How many World CMP slots is each District going to get?
2. How do Legacy/HoF teams play into the number of slots? What if a Legacy/HoF wins an outside regional slot?
3. What auto-qualifies a team for World CMP from DCMP? Chairmans is noted in the document, but does that mean 0-EI and 0-RAS auto-qualify (even though at regionals EI & RAS have auto-qualified teams in past years).
4. How many of each award do District Championships get to give out (CA, EI, RAS, WF, DL come to mind).
I posted those in the comments.

I, along with a very distinguished list of seasoned mentors in NE led by Jess, was on the team in NE that worked out the points model that we sent up to HQ. We spent a lot of hours discussing these very points. Given the points model we now have, the next discussion, and I was hoping Frank would release this info now.

I will also tell you, there was compromise. Some of the things we sent up are in the list,some are not. Some are tweaked. I will not get into a discussion of what was changed or what was not. But I will tell you we put together a prett extensize spreadsheet with 5 different iterations of a points model, 1 using MAR, 1 using FiM and 3 differnt NE models. Bottom line is this, the only teams that were affected were the bottom 8-10 (assuming a pool of 60 DCMP qualifiers). In one iteration with points for judged awards for example, some teams got into District Champs. In another iteration a different set of teams got in. Rookie points/no rookie point bonus, for a majority of teams, the top 80%, it will not make a difference, they will remain. We used my own team as the guinea pig. We are a 2 time Chairmans award winner, mulitple KPCB, never won a Regional nor were a finalist. In some models we were in, in others we were not. We have taken on the task of changing and improving our on field performance and not risking the INSPIRATION that happens to get us to DCMP. (Not an easy task!) So by going to the district model, it has helped us to raise our game and the incentive to make a better program.

Cudos to the distinguished list of people that worked long hours to come up with a points model that is pretty darn good.